No wallet, no problem? • Hacker News Board

Re: No wallet, no problem?

#11

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 7:54 PM UTC

guptaneil wrote: post #6

As much as I love the idea of ubiquitous mobile payments, it's not going to let us ditch our wallets any time soon until the government accepts our phones as a valid form of ID to replace driver's licenses, etc. Until then, my credit card is just another piece of plastic in my wallet. If I have to keep carrying my wallet with me regardless, how do mobile payments make my life easier?

My first thought is of a phone case that has a slot for credit and ID cards. I thought it was a pretty brilliant idea - the only reason I don't use it is because I still have to carry cash and other miscellaneous crap. :(

Re: No wallet, no problem?

#12

Post by jimbobimbo » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 8:05 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #10

jimbobimbo wrote: post #7

"And the user experience is the key: cash and credit cards are convenient as long as you have them with you..." - I'm yet to get out of my apartment without my wallet that has my money, credit cards and ids, I did get out of apartment without my phone quite a few times. Another problem is: how would I use my phone to pay for goods? Some mobile app? Good luck finding merchants accepting these around. NFC? Hey, I do ha…

> Another problem is: how would I use my phone to pay for goods? Some mobile app? I bet people asked the same question about credit cards when they were a brand new thing.

Yes, but now we (almost) all do have credit cards and this makes little incentive for merchants to upgrade to something new, which tries to solve the solved problem by replacing one thing to carry around with another thing to carry around.

Re: No wallet, no problem?

#13

Post by pavel_lishin » Thu, Jun 16, 2011, 10:30 PM UTC

jimbobimbo wrote: post #12

pavel_lishin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another problem is: how would I use my phone to pay for goods? Some mobile app? I bet people asked the same question about credit cards when they were a brand new thing.

Yes, but now we (almost) all do have credit cards and this makes little incentive for merchants to upgrade to something new, which tries to solve the solved problem by replacing one thing to carry around with another thing to carry around.

But that other thing is almost always present - it's not another thing you have to carry, it's adding capability to something almost everyone carries around.

And again, back in the day, there was no incentive to add new fangled credit card readers, when everyone just carried cash and checks around anyway, etc., etc.

Re: No wallet, no problem?

#14

Post by jimbobimbo » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 2:47 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #13

jimbobimbo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but now we (almost) all do have credit cards and this makes little incentive for merchants to upgrade to something new, which tries to solve the solved problem by replacing one thing to carry around with another thing to carry around.

But that other thing is almost always present - it's not another thing you have to carry, it's adding capability to something almost everyone carries around. And again, back in the day, there was no incentive to add new fangled credit card readers, when everyone just carried cash and checks around anyway, etc., etc.

The benefits of going from carrying cash or writing checks to swiping card were clear - the benefits of going from swiping card to swiping phone or poking into some application are not so obvious.